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The Economist magazine has two articles (here and here) about the “success” of charter schools in the U.S., which they admiringly refer to as privatization.

Charter advocates here might be embarrassed by the praise, as they prefer to call themselves “public schools.”

The Economist recognizes that charter schools are experiments in privatization, not simply another form of public school.

Unfortunately the magazine distorts the research on charter schools beyond recognition to justify its praise of privatization and free markets.

After a lame attempt to discredit the CREDO study–the one that found that only 17% of charters outperformed a matched neighborhood public school–the magazine nonetheless portrays charters as the sure cure to “save” black inner-city children. It seems that only private entrepreneurs know the secrets to educating poor black children.

Even charter advocates in the U.S. usually acknowledge that the academic results of charters are mixed, at best. There…

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About Ryan Copeland

Ryan grew up in Maine and studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst before moving to Seattle in 2009. He has worked with school-age students in various settings for the past eight years, including two great years as a literacy specialist at Greenwood Elementary. He currently studies Elementary Education at Penn GSE.